Canadian Museum for Human Rights
Antoine Predock's landmark museum at The Forks, climbed by alabaster ramps to a glass Tower of Hope.
The Canadian Museum for Human Rights opened in September 2014 at The Forks in Winnipeg, the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, and was the first national museum of Canada established outside the National Capital Region. Its eleven core galleries examine human rights in Canada and internationally, among them the history of Indigenous rights, the Indian residential school system, the Holocaust and other mass atrocities, and continuing struggles over equality. Excavation of the site recovered some 400,000 archaeological artefacts, which are acknowledged in the building's interpretation.
The New Mexico architect Antoine Predock won an international competition with a design he described in terms of roots, wings and a cloud. A stone base of Manitoba Tyndall limestone gives way to a curved glass cloud, from which the 100-metre Tower of Hope rises above the city. Visitors ascend through the galleries on almost a kilometre of ramps clad in backlit Spanish alabaster, which glow against the dark interior. The circular Garden of Contemplation, planted with basalt from Mount Etna, sits partway up the route.
Highlights
- Almost a kilometre of glowing alabaster ramps
- Tower of Hope, a 100-metre glass spire with city views
- Garden of Contemplation paved with Mount Etna basalt
- The Witness Blanket, made from residential school fragments
![Afrique occidentale française : Cathédrale à St Louis / [photogr. Eugène] Gallois ; [photogr. reprod. par Radiguet et Massiot pour la conférence donnée par] Gallois](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Afrique_occidentale_fran%C3%A7aise_-_Cath%C3%A9drale_%C3%A0_St_Louis_-_%28photogr._Eug%C3%A8ne%29_Gallois_%3B_%28photogr._reprod._par_Radiguet_et_Massiot_pour_la_conf%C3%A9rence_donn%C3%A9e_par%29_Gallois_-_btv1b532798828.jpg/500px-thumbnail.jpg)
![[Golestan, Le Salon et Fete de l'equinode, Teheran, Iran (le Pavillion du Trone)]](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/-Golestan%2C_Le_Salon_et_Fete_de_l%27equinode%2C_Teheran%2C_Iran_%28le_Pavillion_du_Trone%29-_MET_DP202918.jpg/500px--Golestan%2C_Le_Salon_et_Fete_de_l%27equinode%2C_Teheran%2C_Iran_%28le_Pavillion_du_Trone%29-_MET_DP202918.jpg)
![Théâtre de la guerre dans l'Inde sur la coste de Coromandel / par M.B.C.T. [Monsieur Bourcet Capitaine ?] ; gravé par Croisey](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Fort_de_Calicuta_-_btv1b59706294.jpg/500px-Fort_de_Calicuta_-_btv1b59706294.jpg)
